Polo Invitational Sunday 2nd September

Paddy is coming but we don't know our teams yet, we will know tonight after throw-ins.

The aim of this tournament is to raise the level of play across the rest of the UK (i.e. outside london).
We hope this Regional/North&West Invitational will be an informal variant of the London League that will help the non-London teams hone their competitive/tournament skills.
So we would like to encourage other cities to host their own over the winter. Get planning people.

This is very good and encourageing and just what me and some MCR bods have been talking about this year and have also had a session in April over 2 days. It was really good and I think the MCR team in question benefitted a great deal. It wasn't a tournament but just repeated games of around 5 hours of play over 2 days which was a good concentration of play. The fact that we kept playing over and over again in a non-tournament fashion mean't the pressure was off to do well in each game and take time to think about play and be experimental and have a throw-in approach to the event but with focus on development as a team.

As much as I love tournaments I find them frustrating from a playing point of view: so the less exprienced teams get knocked out quickly in the elimination rounds and don't get to play again while the more experienced teams move through the elimination playing more games and ultimately get more experience as a team. While one competiton might not provide one team with a huge amount of extra play, over the course of one season or the lifetime of that team it really adds up in terms of quality polo time and the less experienced teams miss out big time, tournaments stretch out the skill gaps between teams.

If we want to raise the level of play across the non-London UK scenes then I think we shouldn't have another 'tournament' this weekend but more a polo camp/ training sesson approach, we could do a round robin so that everyone plays equal number of games and are not left out towards the end of the day. Perhaps an elimnation between the top four teams for fun.

Tournaments determine skill levels, throw-ins are where the learning happens. Anyway, this is Birminghams event but that's my 2 pence.

Change of plans, looks like I'm going to Manchester for Saturday night and heading down Sunday morning from there.

Will you have space to give one or two of us a lift there? Looks like the best train would get us to Brum station at 9:58, so late to court.

the court is only an 8ish minute ride from the station, so we could put you guys on last in the first round..

I see where you're coming from Rich, and it would be nice to try stuff out more as a team, but for this one we're going to go with a Swiss/mini single elim thing. It may be worth trying a less structured approach in the future.

In my opinion, there's plenty of time to try out new stuff at regular local polo sessions. Think of this as kind of an 'intermediate' mini-tournament, but with absolutely no consequence or pressure. If you want to try different things, just go for it.

There isn't enough time for round robin unfortunately. Maybe we could do that at a hired court (Manchester/Cardiff/Bristol indoor?) where we could take all day over it if necessary. We'd like to get wrapped up by 5pm on Sunday so the local yoof can play stupid kickball.

Yep no worries i'm totally happy with it but it's something to think about for future events. Looking foward to this !

There isn't enough time for round robin unfortunately. Maybe we could do that at a hired court (Manchester/Cardiff/Bristol indoor?) where we could take all day over it if necessary.

In Cardiff there's the Llanedeyrn Highschool tarmac sports hall. Huge court. Ask O'Shane or Pawl for details.

1. Black Stabbath (Dan, Fin, Andy)
   
2. WRISTS (Neil, Matt, Mya)
   
3. Team Warin
   
4. in process 2 (BRS)
   
5. SoYo Polo Co (Andrew, Chris, Matt: People's Republic of South Yorkshire)
   
6. Sandbagers (josh, Luca, Bogey)
   
7. Chancunian Chandidates (ben, em, sally)
   
8. Cardiff - Paul, Rich, Beagle
   
9. Bristol Meth - Ady, Andre, Zsofia
   10.
   

Will you have space to give one or two of us a lift there? Looks like the best train would get us to Brum station at 9:58, so late to court.

I duzn't haz car.

That is ridiculous, how can there not be an earlier train!!!

Also its a cross country train so that means only 3 bike spaces and conductor who will make very sure that no more make it on.

1. Black Stabbath (Dan, Fin, Andy)
   
2. WRISTS (Neil, Matt, Mya)
   
3. Team Warin
   
4. Pop Tastic, Mate! (Leah, Eli, Cab)
   
5. SoYo Polo Co (Andrew, Chris, Matt: People's Republic of South Yorkshire)
   
6. Sandbagers (josh, Luca, Bogey)
   
7. Chancunian Chandidates (ben, em, sally)
   
8. Cardiff - Paul, Rich, Paddy
   
9. Bristol Meth - Ady, Andre, Zsofia
   10.
   
   

Leah & Eli will think of a smart name for our team. Well let's call it Pop Tastic, Mate! I guess I was thinking about dear ol' Fluff but Smashie & Nicie might be more apt this time.

City team cap removed for that last spot. One more!

mancunian candidates are GO!! managed to blag a car of my ex, tim you need a ride from manchester too?? can fit 4 polo bikes on rack, get in touch with Emyr or Salman as I'm picking them up in stockport

1. Black Stabbath (Dan, Fin, Andy)
   
2. WRISTS (Neil, Matt, Mya)
   
3. Team Warin
   
4. in process 2 (Leah, Eli, Cab)
   
5. SoYo Polo Co (Andrew, Chris, Matt: People's Republic of South Yorkshire)
   
6. Sandbadgers (josh, Luca, Bogey)
   
7. Chancunian Chandidates (ben, em, sally)
   
8. Cup-A-Soup - Paul, Rich, Paddy
   
9. Bristol Meth - Ady, Zsofia, Andre
   10.
   

Thought 'Bristol Meth' was better.......

mancunian candidates are GO!! managed to blag a car of my ex, tim you need a ride from manchester too?? can fit 4 polo bikes on rack, get in touch with Emyr or Salman as I'm picking them up in stockport

That would be the best thing ever! I will get to Stockport whatever it takes.

1. Black Stabbath (Dan, Fin, Andy)
   
2. WRISTS (Neil, Matt, Mya)
   
3. Team Warin
   
4. in process 2 (Leah, Eli, Cab)
   
5. SoYo Polo Co (Andrew, Chris, Matt: People's Republic of South Yorkshire)
   
6. Sandbadgers (josh, Luca, Bogey)
   
7. Chancunian Chandidates (ben, em, sally)
   
8. Cup-A-Soup - Paul, Rich, Paddy
   
9. 'Bristol Meth' - Ady, Zsofia, Andre
   10.
   

That would be the best thing ever! I will get to Stockport whatever it takes.

Train to stockport is probably easiest, it's downhill from the rear of the station to where we're meeting at Staples. Best landmark is the big dark blue Co-op Bank glass pyramid, you'll see it on the right as the train crosses the tall viaduct before the station.

Current plan is to meet at Staples 8am.

One more team (or one less) would be awesome.

Sort it out, regional UK.

Warin are taking Frax as a sub for Tim. Tabs was also interested, so intercity superteam?

1. Black Stabbath (Dan, Fin, Andy)
   
2. WRISTS (Neil, Matt, Mya)
   
3. Team Warin
   
4. Pop Tastic, Mate! (Leah, Eli, Cab)
   
5. SoYo Polo Co (Andrew, Chris, Matt: People's Republic of South Yorkshire)
   
6. Sandbagers (josh, Luca, Bogey)
   
7. Chancunian Chandidates (ben, em, sally)
   
8. Cardiff - Paul, Rich, Paddy
   
9. Bristol Meth - Ady, Andre, Zsofia
   10.
   
   

Leah & Eli will think of a smart name for our team. Well let's call it Pop Tastic, Mate! I guess I was thinking about dear ol' Fluff but Smashie & Nicie might be more apt this time.

One more team (or one less) would be awesome.

Sort it out, regional UK.

How about having a different throw-in team each round to avoid having byes?

I like the idea:)

Yes!

http://challonge.com/birminghamri

Woo! Fourth place!!! We'll take that!